Book: Moby Dick

I have a confession to make: I was not prepared for this book.

What I mean by that is that for years Moby Dick has been one of those books that I felt like I should have read, that it was a matter of education and scholarship to read it, that it would be dry and slow moving but quote-unquote important and therefore it was my responsibility to sit down and wade through it. I knew about Ahab, and the White Whale, and "Call me Ishmael" and a few other elements, but I've never read a scholarly article or delved into the plot in detail, so I expected typical 19th century melodrama with a psychological and seafaring edge.

Instead, what I found was a book that was epic, passionate, Biblical, Shakespearean, and all-consuming. In other words, it was not at all what I expected. 

It makes sense (as I learned today) that Moby Dick is a book that was forgotten in its time and then rediscovered by the Modernists in the 1920s. As someone who is just now, as an adult, discovering the pleasures and the pathos of reading the Modernist authors--whose cry to "Make it New" means that sometimes their writing is initially inaccessible and hard to connect with--I can see why Melville's magnum opus was unappreciated in 1851 and rediscovered as a classic years later. The form, the themes, and even some of the issues seem to predate the Modernists by 70 years. 

Perhaps that is what genius is: working so far ahead of your peers that you cannot be understood until the rest of the world catches up with your brain.

The style of the novel is itself intensely modern. Melville mixes long, nearly textbook-like passages that explore every facet of the whale and whaling with chapters that read like an adventure novel and, more regularly, passages that read like Shakespeare. And I mean that in every sense of the word. The first time the "novel" is interrupted by stage directions and a soliloquy, I almost had to put the book down, I was so startled by Melville's audacity. Those soliloquies, the scope of the dialogue, and the fury of Ahab all increase as the novel progresses. I don't know at what point it happened, but I began to place Ahab next to Hamlet, and Lear, and perhaps most fittingly Macbeth, those tragic heroes whose are both all of us and the worst of us in one heart-rending package.

Yet, like Shakespeare, Melville is not drowning in sorrow, either. Honestly, the first thing that surprised me about Moby Dick and Ishmael in particular was just how funny it was. Ishmael's frustration with being forced to share a bed at an inn, his decision to sleep on a bench, his inability to get comfortable, his move back to the shared bed, and his discovery that the "savage cannibal" Queequeg will be his bed mate is all played with a wry comedy that I was not expecting. Similarly, there are some amazing comic passages later in the novel as well, as the different personalities on the ship are given chances to interact with one another.

That friendship between Quequeg and Ishmael was another surprise in its modernism. Surely there are many racist passages in the book describing the African and Pacific Island crew members as less than their white counterparts, yet at the heart of the book is also this deep bond between the white man the tattooed and brown-skinned Queequeg. One of my few disappointments in the book is only that the two don't get to interact much once the Pequod sets sail. Their friendship and common humanity sets an important tone for the rest of the novel.

I also loved the Biblical undertones (and overtones) of the book. Early in the novel, as Ishmael ventures into a church and sees a pulpit shaped like the bow of a ship, which Father Mapple climbs into like a sailor up the side of his ship, what is his subject? Whales, of course. More specifically, the Biblical whale and Jonah. Thus early on whales are tied up with divine power, with the question of God's wrath, with sin and sinners and immeasurable power. Throughout the novel, again and again Biblical and theological questions are raised, the meaning of the universe is questioned, and fate and divinity are brought into play.

It is against this epic scope that I finally began to understand why Melville felt the need to systematize, examine, and detail every aspect of whales and whaling so minutely. As he dissects, breaks down, and philosophizes on every tiny facet of the whale, the creature itself becomes absolutely knowable--catalogued, classified, and codified. Yet as readers we have to contrast that with Ahab. Ahab, who doesn't speak for days (and for chapters) after appearing. Ahab, who shuts himself away in his cabin. Ahab, who is so single-minded and focused that he cannot stop his pursuit of the whale for anything--even the simple human kindness of helping a father search for his lost son. Ahab--and by extension man--is unknowable next to the dumb biology of the whale. The whale is understandable; mankind, and other people, at their hearts are not. The whale is a thing, driven by instinct (note the time the author takes in talking about the whale's brain); while the viciousness of Moby Dick may be unique, as Starbuck eventually tells Ahab, the captain is the one who is driven by a murderous and beastlike lust for revenge, not the whale. We know the leviathan so completely so that we can realize how little we understand those right next to us. At least that's the interpretation that works for me.

I loved the book. Was it dry at times? Yes. Did I ever want to put it down and let it remain unfinished? Perhaps a few times. Yet the experience of reading this book was as profound an experience as I've had reading anything in the last few years. I think it may have entered my own personal pantheon of all time favorite books.

And quite frankly, that is the last thing I expected.

Grade: A